SunnComm anti-piracy deal
QuietTiger has bought England’s DarkNoise Technologies. Interesting combination of names.
Equally interesting is the fact that QuietTiger is also the “exclusive marketing arm” of SunnComm’s MediaMax technology, currently utilized by Germany’s BMG record label, of which more later.
“QuietTiger is dedicated to becoming the leading vendor of anti-piracy technologies to the audio, video and digital media markets,” states SunnComm.
That’s because DarkNoise technology closes the “Analog Hole” for compact discs and “prohibits” uploading of mp3 music files over the Net, says SunnComm which, having once nearly drowned in the dark waters of ‘guaranteed’ CD Copy Protection, is venturing there again.
The technology works by encoding the original digital audio file with a unique hidden signal, says Winston Keech, DarkNoise’s cto. “The signal is embedded in the audio master and becomes an indelible part of the actual audio file in addition to aiding in subsequent origin identification. Should the original CD be copied, so, too, is the hidden signal and identification ‘tag.’
“Unless illegally invoked, the listener is unaware of the hidden signal’s presence. Attempts to illegally copy the protected audio using analog recording devices, analog-to-digital converters or psycho-acoustic compression codes such as MP3, will invoke the hidden signal which transforms to become audible within the range of human hearing, thus ruining the unauthorized copy.”
While the recording industry has grappled to “regain control of physical piracy with digital rights management (DRM) technology, file format disruption technologies, and Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) lawsuits against infringing consumers, it has failed to deliver a complete solution until now,” says Chris McKee, DarkNoise’s executive vp of sales and marketing.
“Together, both companies will produce a technology that major labels should want to roll out as quickly as possible. Unlike other copy management and protection technologies, the CD replicators will not be required to implement expensive hardware add-ons because all the protection and enhancement technology is included within the DDP file set from which CD replicator’s glass masters are made. Thus, the rollout of MediaMax worldwide will be speedier than with competing technologies.”
SunnComm cto Eric Vandewater, “has been charged with the responsibility for integrating SunnComm’s existing MediaMax M4 technology with the DarkNoise product and has already begun the process alongside the DarkNoise inventor,” says SunnComm, going on:
“The DarkNoise intellectual property is extremely well documented and will help us to revolutionize copy management in today’s digital age. We expect to have beta (test) versions in the hands of our major record company customers within 60 days. It will be the combination of DarkNoise and MediaMax technologies that we believe will transform SunnComm and its marketing arm, QuietTiger, into the world’s leading copy management technology,” concluded Vandewater.
Of course, this’ll be fighting talk to Explorers of Technology who maintain that what one person can do, another can undo – and SunnComm already has bitter experience of this philosophy.
Last year SunnComm client BMG – one of the Big Five record labels – boasted its Arista Records was “the company’s first label in the U.S.” to release a commercial CD using copy management technology. The CD was Comin’ From Where I’m From – the debut album of R&B artist Anthony Hamilton.
“This CD will not be able to be mass copied,” promised BMG, and the technology that was going to prevent this was SunnComm’s MediaMax.
However, predictably, within hours of the announcement, copies were all over the place on p2p file sharing networks.
John Halderman, a Princeton University computer science graduate student, was also prompted to have a look at MediaMax, using Comin’ From Where I’m From as the t est item. Ultimately, he published a report showing how easy is was to crack SunnComm’s MediaMax CD copy protection.
February 10th, 2004 at 10:20 pm
If you had a silver bullet, no make that a gold bullet, that actually did everything that Darknoise and SunComm claim, would you (DarkNoise) sell it for $150,000 cash and 10,000,000 shares of a 6 penny stock (TigerTail) that is a subsidiary of another penny stock (SunnComm)? And if you believe the “binding MOU” doesn’t have perforamance outs, you’re crazy) This is vaporware! Anybody can issue a press release that says they walk on water. What I can’t understand is why BMG goes along with it.
February 12th, 2004 at 4:07 am
You are right on. But it gets interesting if you dig deeper.
On January 23rd, SunnComm chose Quiet Tiger as its exclusive marketing arm. In the press release it described Quiet Tiger as: “Quiet Tiger, Inc., …. is an international sales and marketing group representing the implementation and delivery of digital content security products for the music and entertainment industry.”
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040123/235132_1.html
That is nonsense. Quiet Tiger was a failed resources company who became a failed floppy disk manufacturer who got together with SunnComm a few years ago to self promote each other in order to print shares at unrealistic prices to an uninformed public.
Read all about their previous adventure here:
http://www.our-street.com/SEC-SunnComm4.htm